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Memory Beta:Community Portal/Archive
>Archive 1 The 40th Anniversary Community Project I have been thinking that with the approach of the 40th anniversary of TOS and of Star Trek in general, that it would be great that we could all work on all TOS related articles and greatly increase our TOS coverage. Now, I know that we all like to work on our own little projects and that some people aren't keen on TOS novels. But if we all work together on these articles it would not be such a daunting task and would be something we could be proud of at the end. If this project is successful, then next year we could have a similar project for the 20th anniversary of TNG and the 10th of NF. I know that this entire project is something that will never be completely finished due to the continuous influx of new novels etc., but I believe that this would go along way in enhancing the wiki. I'd like to know you're views, Thanks :-) --The Doctor, 07:32, 18 July 2006 :Interesting idea. I've actually been trying to find time to write up info from a bunch of TOS comics (Mostly DC) that I had stowed in a box and recently uncovered (Ah! Lost treasures!). I've uploaded a few various images, but so far Kobry is the only full entry that has come of it, and most of that info came from a TNG novel. I'm just a little reluctant to go full bore on entries from this series, because there was a guy who started entries for the first few issues and a few characters, but I don't think he's contributed for a while.--Turtletrekker 09:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC) ::I believe this would be great. Such a project usually combines many efforts and makes it more fun, at the same time as the wiki is getting enhanced. Peter R 04:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC) :Tis a good idea Doctor, I've only read a couple of TOS novels and the next I plan to is some time off, but I've been filling in some of the basics on the less developed novel pages and have a few TOS comics I could write up for the project -- 8of5 10:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC) ::I've set up a special page to discuss the project, Here Species Categories I'm continuing a discussion that started on my talk page. This is what we've written so far. Peter R 17:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC) Pjotr'k, I think I understand why you've been adjusting all the pages categories; to avoid repetition on the category pages themselves. However having the multiple categories on each page is a useful navigation tool, for instance: The Klingon page now has a single category, Klingon, so if someone was on the Klingon page and thought, "hmm, I wonder what other species live in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants" they now have to go to Klingon category, or find that category by some other means, which maybe isn't that awful but it just makes things that little bit less convenient. Do you not think you should have at least discussed this in the community portal before going ahead and makes such substantial changes? -- 8of5 17:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC) :Maybe you are right. I believe I have done the right thing, but will take it up in the community portal. See you there! Peter R 17:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC) My motives for this action (and I apologize if I didn't take it up here first, I will try not to make that mistake again) is: - I believe that the best organization is a slim organization, and this requires that we don't put i.e. the article Klingon in both Category:Klingons, Category:Alpha and Beta Quadrant Species and Category:Species (or for that matter in the Delta Quadrant Species category, since they've also been establishing a foothold there - according to VOY series). It is better, IMO, that we only list that one in the category Klingons and see to it that this category is listed appropriately. - I think that the most likely scenario, if someone goes to the article Klingon, that they actually are interested in knowing more about the Klingons, instead of searching for neighboring species. (Small point: Since the Klingons have been at war with most of alpha/beta species, they are probably mentioned in the article anyhow) What do you others think? Again I apologize for me not taking it up here first. Peter R 17:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC) :I'll have to disagree with you. Even such a broad category as "Characters" at least helps sift out authors, real-world production people, etc. And specifically your example above: Listing the "Klingon" article in the Klingon category is something of a catch-all, since the page is mostly a listing of individual Klingons, but that way one can go to the species page and find a direct link to the character listing. And personally, I think it's a very useful division to have separate categories for "Species" and "Alpha and Beta Quadrant Species", since there are uses for a listing of all species, and other uses for a listing of species within the main "playing field" of the ST universe. Technically perhaps the latter should be a subcategory of the former, but the real effect is to add one more step in between you and the page you're looking for. And are there that many pages where the Categories are so cluttered? (and the klingons are neither native to the Delta Quadrant nor is there more than a trivial presence, so no, they would not be listed in that category). A little pruning can be a good thing, but I think you've been going a little overboard.--Emperorkalan 19:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC) ::One objection: I haven't meant that we shouldn't list the species categories in both Alpha/Beta and Species - they are all listed as that now, and that is correct. Alpha/Beta is also now a subcategory to species, and I understand that we should maintain the double listing on this point. However: Why list the article "Klingon" as part of all three of them? Why not list that article only in "Cat:Klingon" and have our focus on ordering mainly the category itself. It's easier to maintain, even when we decide to change standards in the future, and we get a better view on all the articles in this great wiki. BTW: How is the "Cat:Characters" benefitted from having maybe 1.000 characters listed in alphabetical order - it's not what we "sift through". What people mostly do is to start at their favorite series / subject and look there, or just make a Q&D search on the wiki search function. Peter R 20:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC) :::I see what you're getting at, and actually I agree in part: the current situation is due to excessive cross-listing of categories. The biggest difference may be in how to organize it. For instance: I think it's proper that the article "Klingon" is listed in all three ... it's "Cat:Klingon" that should NOT be cross-listed in the species categories. Reason: the article points to Klingons as a species, whereas the Cat:Klingon page is primarily a listing of individual Klingons (and can effectively be considered a sub-page of the article) -- It's the species article which is the natural organizing point (at least on this matter; other topics will have other organizing points that we'll have to sort out). (And upon further reflection, given the nature of this wiki, "Cat:Character" is a bit redundant, since it can be considered a default condition. It might be that in a place like Memory Alpha, which pays more attention to the actors, writers, and other real-life production people that such a category serves a more useful purpose, and not so much here.) Is this making any sense?--Emperorkalan 21:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC) ::::I'm not sure I understand your last thoughts about "Cat:Character" being a bit redundant. Should we remove it completely, you think? I believe we should aim at having this category as a top category over all the categories that it's now having. ::::I understand what you are saying about the comparance Article/Category, but I see it as the Klingon article is to be seen as part of, or as "sub" to the Klingon category. This is where we can't meet in unison. Of course, if more people would involve themselves in this discussion (we'll give it some time, I think), then we could have some sort of vote. If the majority says one thing, I'll of course go along with that decision. Peter R 04:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC) :::::A vote could be done. One thing to consider, though (and why I didn't make a big issue of it when people started the excessive cross-listing), is ''"Is '''this really that important to tackle now, or wouldn't the time be better spent generating the basic material: going through the novels and other materials and creating the write-ups for the assorted characters, ships, and whatnot that appear -- the basic purpose of this wiki -- before getting all worked up over how the category trees hang?"'' My answer, obviously was for the basic material, otherwise you would have already found the cats all tidied up (albiet the way I'' think they should go ;). (One final point: if you get too particular about how you think the categories should be organized, be prepared to spend a lot of time "policing" the matter, as not everyone posting will adhere to the rules (whatever those rules may be).)--Emperorkalan 11:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC) ::::::Or, maybe we should take the discussion now instead of later... However, I see your point, and take your side on this. We wait with the debate (if not someone else feels up to it again! :) ) and see to it that it comes up again in time. Peter R 15:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC) :I think whilst it is of course important to keep adding new material I have to agree with Peter that sorting out categories is kind of important, if only because if we don’t do it now it means a huge amount of work for someone(s) when we do decide on something. However I firmly believe the Klingon article should be the focus of any link to Klingon, if I go to the species page and click on Klingon I expect to arrive directly at an article about Klingons not a list of things related to Klingons. There is already a link to the 'Klingons' category right at the top of the page, maybe a similar link to the 'Klingon culture' category should be added, and *poof* there's your hub based on the article with quick links to list of people who are Klingon and all things Klingon. ‎-- 8of5 16:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC) ::I hate to drag up old debates but no conclusion was ever made so the species category is still (IMO) a complete mess. I'm eager to get in there and ''fix it but don’t really want to if it's going to get flipped right back because of a disagreement on how the pages should be categorized. -- 8of5 00:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC) :::Not that many has given their opinions on this matter. Do you think someone else will be interested? Otherwise, we might as well decide here and now. I believe something must be done now, and not to wait until the workload is much bigger. About your Klingon suggestion: If I go to the species category and click on Klingon I, in comparison to you, would appreciate coming to a list of everything klingon. If I wanted the Klingon article in the first place, I would search for "Klingon" to the left at any page I'm in. This is how Wikipedia (or at least the swedish one) is organized and it feels natural and easy enogh. I'm not so adamant about this, however, so if the majority here wants the version of having both the Klingon article and the Klingon category listed under i.e. Category:Species, then I will follow that and change accordingly. I believe that will be more confusing in the end, though. Peter R 10:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC) :Runs off to look at wikipedia (not that we have to follow their structure), english one has Klingon article in species, also has Klingons category there. However, memoryalpha only has the article, not the category at all listed in the species category. :This is the structure I think any species (using Klingon for example) should use: *Klingon article is listed in the following categories: Species and Alpha and Beta Species *Klingons category should then be listed in the characters category *Klingon culture category should also be in the Klingons category (and maybe a new cultures category to collect together all the cultural pages). *There doesn’t seem to be a Qo'noS category, but many home-planets have one, category:Andoria for example. The homeworld category should have the Klingons and Klingon culture categories as sub categories too. :This leaves the Klingon article listed on only the species pages. But on the Klingons category the page description should link back tot he Klingon article, and similarly on the Klingon article there will be (as there already is) something that says, "for a list of Klingons click here" (or something to that effect) and a similar written link to klingon culture. But I would give in to having the Klingon article as a *'ed entry in both the Klingons and Klingon culture categories. :Apologies for how long winded this is, just trying to make everything clear, but my main points are; species articles not categories should be in the species category. Now maybe why not have both? Well that would make the species category very long as there are an awful lot of categories listing characters by species. I think character listings should just be listed in the characters category only. That said if a majority wanted both I'd settle for that, my main worry is that the species article should be listed on the species category. Though just to wittle on a little bit more, I think it would be a neater solution to have the only subcategories of the species page being geographical and classification ones, eg alpha and beta species, plants, animals, etc. At the moment they are lost in the plethora of characters listed by species. -- 8of5 14:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC) ::OK, I agree with your suggestion, with the one extra suggestion that we, as you also said, should (not "could") add the Klingons article in the Klingons category as well, with the * marking. Do we have consensus? Peter R 20:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC) :Works for me, *fewth*, should the klingon article also be in the klingon culture category you think? -- 8of5 21:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC) ::I don't think so. If we have so much of culture things that we think it should be categorized in Category:Klingon culture, it's better to move that info to a seperate article on the topic Klingon culture. Just because klingon culture is mentioned on the page doesn't make it necessary to categorize it such, just as if the starship Excalibur was mentioned on the page, doesn't mean that we should categoize it under a special Excalibur category. Peter R 05:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC) Amazon Standardized Inventory Numbers Anyone who's spent much time at Amazon knows they sometimes assign inventory numbers which are different from the product's actual ISBN. In some cases, such as the VHS editions of the original series episodes, these are all digits and can still be wiki-linked as ISBNs. In others, such as the Braille edition of The Devil's Heart, ASIN B0006QS0GE, they contain letters and cannot be linked as ISBNs. Memory-Alpha recently overcame this problem by adding an ASIN template, and I was wondering if this wiki could do the same--Robert Treat 21:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC) Template:Titan I've created a template on Titan that I think could be used on all Titan articles (novels, main article, etc). Do you think this would be a thing that we could use? And, in a longer perspective, is it a standard we could use on other book series as well? It's just a start, but I created it so that you could see how I thought it. I also suggest that the Titan novels will get their own category that we put under Cat:TNG novels, what do you think about that? Peter R 09:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC) :The template looks good to me. Informative on all the ships and characters associated with the series. Good work. :-) --The Doctor, 09:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC) ::Sounds good, and indeed should be roled out for other series. One thing, whilst Romulus and Remus are prominet at the start of the series, Titan isn't headed back to them anytime soon. Where as the rest of the series is to be set in the Gum Nebula region isn't it? (I've only read the first one so far so only have second hand info). Also when the cover of book 4 is revealed I think it would be abit prettier to add the image of the Titan along the right side or something. -- 8of5 10:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC) ::Oh and completey agree with that particular category idea, same for Stargazer. And Vanguard under TOS too maybe. -- 8of5 10:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC) :::Okey, then I know how you think and since the reaction was so positive from you, I will add the template to the appropriate pages. 8of5: Is the region called "Gum Nebula"? I haven't got book #2 with me anymore, so I can't check it. The Romulus/Remus notice was just a start, since I couldn't remember the rest. We should probably add some characters as they are becoming more and more regular. Peter R 10:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC) ::I believe so, quite a few Titan related pages link to the Gum Nebula page. But I dont really know for sure having only read Taking Wing so far. Dependant on how others feel I think it would help to keep te now/next boxes. I know all the books are listed in the Titan box but it just makes things in line with the way the rest of the wiki naviagtaes and means if you arn't familar with the Titan box you can quickly find what you want in the common now/next box. -- 8of5 12:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC) :::I believe that this information becomes redundant and it's cluttering the pages, when it's also seen in the Titan template. And the fact that I experience the whole start box not at all nice (=good looking) has something to do with my standing on this issue as well. It is, however, not that big a deal, so if others think as you, I will comply (as they say in the Borg complex). Peter R 07:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC) ::Do not miss my second question, about Titan novels in their own category (as well as NF novels in their own category). Peter R 12:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC) :::Just a thought, if you do these for the main TV series too I suggest you convert the pre-existent series media templates (such as Template:TNG). As the new template will effectively replace them. -- 8of5 13:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC) ::::OK, thanks for telling. I'm not there yet, so I will wait them for the time being. It's better to get everything right with the "smaller" book series first. Peter R 17:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC) User:Stephen Colbert I just thought I'd give you guys a head's-up on this character. He seems to just come in and replace the details of an entry with the picture of Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, apparently raising an eyebrow in disdain. He's done it to literally scores of entries, and I just noticed this morning that he did it to one of mine. Here's the link to his image of Colbert sans the http: //homepage.mac.com/hbsherwood/images/colbert1.jpg Can we ban this guy's IP or something? It's really Quite Irritating ™. Commander, Starbase23 14:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC) Chronological lists of Star Trek stories I've put a lot of work into a series of articles I created at Wikipedia with the above title. (Take a look!) It's only a matter of time before someone calls them fancruft, so I'd like to see them on this wiki as well. Further, I think that there is a lot of potential for expanding and tweaking them here (especially since I don't own any of the books). I'd particularly like to see where New Frontier, IKS Gorkon, and SCE fit in. Thoughts? -- StAkArnak 21:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC) :Well we already have timeline pages for years, decades and centuries, so do feel free to fill in any gaps there. And most novel, comic and episode pages have some sort of now and next box, which conveniently leads me to something I've been meaning to bring up. Some of those pages now have several different now and next boxes, I think we could do with a single now and next box, showing multiple connections if necessary, but the bottoms of the pages are getting really messy at the moment. I have an idea for a new singular box to do the job, I might get to work on... :Back to StAkArnak, there is a book coming out soon called Voyages of Imagination which will have an extensive timeline of all star trek books, a couple of comics and I think episodes, including the placements of flashbacks and such. Should be a very handy resource for you timeliners and I feel should also be the basis for the timelines we have on the site. :Oh, an another thought, whilst we do already have timeline pages I suppose a History of Everything page chronologically placing every story might be somewhat useful and could certainly be a way of using what you've done already. -- 8of5 07:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Template:Reference Work I noticed Memory Beta has a lot of novels and series-to-novels on it, but no boilerplate template for any reference works. Is this because Alpha has it covered? I was just there and read Alpha's treatment of David Gerrold's "The World of STAR TREK: The Show the Network Could Not Kill!" and it was light/lite to say the least. I have a first edition of this work and would be happy to give it a shot. (I know you folks are up to your armpits in 40th anniversary stuff.) So this project could go on the back burner. Just let me know. Thanks! K'Bett --KBett Fri Nov 23, 2007 1944 EST **Wonders why my wiki-mark-up sucks**